There has been quite the buzz over ultrabooks for the past few weeks, and it seems as though Toshiba is ready to grab their slice of the news pie (actually, can we have cake?) with the announcement of their Portege Z830 series of, you guessed it, ultrabooks.

Powered by Intel Sandy Bridge processors, the ultra (slim) book is housed in a magnesium alloy chassis measuring 15.9mm (0.63 inches) thick. Slated to be 20% lighter and 40% thinner than their previous ultraportable Portege R830 series, the company has reinforced the chassis with a honeycomb ribbing (I’m sure Josh is making a joke out of that right now) and some new internal shock dampening structures. The company stated that the Z830 would weigh less than 2.5 lbs, though the number may vary depending on the specific configuration. Because the notebook is so thin, they needed to go metal for the chassis to prevent serious warping and bending of the computer (and is coincidentally one of the items that caused manufacturers to complain about the sub-$1,000 requirement). Other chassis features include a full size LED backlit and spill resistant keyboard.

Other hardware details about the computer are scarce in that Toshiba has not released much. The ultrabook will contain a 128 GB solid state drive and DDR3 memory. From photos of the ultrabook, the computer supports (likely Gigabit) Ethernet, USB, and HDMI ports. Stereo speakers by Waves Audio, Toshiba’s High Speed Start and USB Sleep and Charge technologies are also featured.

The Protege Z830 ultrabook series will be available in November 2011, and will carry a MSRP of less than $1,000 USD. Stay tuned to PC Perspective for more ultrabook coverage.

The new Qosmio model is a serious laptop and a contender for anyone looking for a desktop replacement. With a Core-i7-2635QM, 8GB of DDR3, a 1.5GB GTX 560M and two HDD, a 750GB 7,200 RPM for your OS and programs and a secondary 500GB 5,400 RPM for long term storage. It also has a 1080p 17.3" 3D-ready LCD so you can watch your 3D Blu-ray copy of Avatar on the go. You'll probably want to watch it while plugged into a wall wart, Tech Review Source found the battery pegged out at around the 2 hour mark.

“The Toshiba Qosmio X775-3DV78 is a 17-inch laptop that has a 1080p full HD 3D display, a second-generation Intel quad-core CPU and 8GB of RAM. Along with USB 3.0, dual-hard drives and a Blu-ray player, users will find this laptop's performance to be very appealing.”

The basic stats of the Toshiba Thrive don't make it stand out, a 1GHz Tegra 2, 1GB of RAM, 8, 16 or 32MB internal storage and a 10.1" screen at 1280 x 800 pixels. What does make this Honeycomb 3.1 device stand out is its support for peripherals, a full-sized HDMI port, 2 USB ports, one standard and one micro and a full-sized SD card slot. That means this slightly weighty tablet doesn't need adaptors for your peripherals which might mean less total weight for you to carry around. Even better, Ars Technica had absolutely no problems using the ports, it truly was plug'n'play.

"When Toshiba asked if we'd like to review its Android tablet, called the Thrive, we were initially a bit skeptical of the Honeycomb 3.1 device. There are so many other Android tablets on the market, so why choose this one? Especially when it's heavy?

When you're fighting the iPad on one hand and multiple Android competitors on the other, you have to stand out. Toshiba chose to fight a battle of connectivity and convenience with the Thrive, and it added full-sized HDMI, USB, and SD ports. If those things matter to you, the Thrive succeeds admirably."

It's yet another 3D laptop, as the only thing geekier that walking around staring at a notebook is to do so wearing big green NVIDIA glasses. The arguments for and against 3D vision aside, this 15.6" 1366x768 TFT LED is powered by a 2.3GHz Core i5 with 6GB DDR3, a Geforce GT540M with 1GB dedicated VRAM and a Blue-ray drive. Those features, especially the Blue-ray and 3D display help push the price over the $1000 mark. The Inquirer had fun reviewing this laptop, but were not impressed with the low brightness in 3D mode and were very disappointed with the battery life.

"THE SATELLITE P755 is one of Toshiba's top of the range laptops. It aims to offer the full entertainment and multimedia package with Nvidia's active shutter 3D technology built in.

The laptop is good looking with its silvery grey textured finish. We think it looks stylish without going over the top and the design should appeal to a range of tastes."

Toshiba's new Qosmio F750 uses it's built in webcam to track your face, which means you do not have to remain stationary in the '3D sweet spot' in order to see 3D images, nor do you need to wear special glasses. Unfortunately that also means that only one person can see the effect, trying to share the 15.6" screen with someone else will not work very well. Inside the laptop is a 2.0 GHz Core i7 CPU with an NVIDIA GT 540M with up to 2GB DDR3, 6GB of system RAM, and a 640GB hard drive. Check out the text and video preview over at The Inquirer.

"JAPANESE ELECTRONICS GIANT Toshiba invited The INQUIRER to a sneak preview of its Qosmio F75D glasses free 3D laptop in London yesterday.

The Qosmio F750 3D doesn't look all that different from the others in the range. It does have a stylish look, if a little chunky at the same time. The casing is bright red and the palm rests have a cool carbon fibre look."